choose a small number of product stock keeping units (SKUs) and offer items in small amounts to different markets. This allows merchants to see whether a natural demand for a product exists in different target countries before making any significant inventory and warehousing investments.
3
Take advantage of the many new shipping and fulfillment services to scale new international delivery efforts. Most companies don’t wake up with high worldwide demand. It builds over time. A merchant needs to plan how to fulfill orders based on sales volume while addressing each country’s delivery challenges. Do your research. Different providers excel in specific geographic regions and offer different services. Sellers need to:
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Expand fulfillment capabilities and inventory to each country incrementally. Deciding whether to keep product in a warehouse locally in each country or to ship product from the US depends on a company’s product values, business model, and sales volume. In early stages, SMBs often fulfill cross-border shipments for test countries in-house from the US. As sales grow, it might make sense to maintain inventory in warehouses locally in your target country and outsource all the fulfillment. For example, warehousing and outsourced fulfillment can be supplied by Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Working with Amazon is an investment, however, and merchants need to keep a deep SKU of products and maintain steady sales to have regularly stocking a warehouse make sense.
4
If you are processing your own orders, use shipping automation software to create a more predictable international buying experience for customers. International couriers can charge for delivery re-attempts, address correction fees, and return fees. Sellers need to provide valid and accurate contact and address information from customers. Shipping automation software eliminates input errors by allowing users to automatically import orders from marketplaces, such as eBay, Amazon, and others. Sellers can also purchase discounted postage, accurately and automatically print labels, and quickly locate orders and track shipments from a centralized dashboard. This is invaluable for immediately dealing with customs issues. Other features found in cloud-based shipping solutions that offer international shipping efficiencies include: